"The notion that a radical is one who hates his country is naïve and usually idiotic. He is, more likely, one who likes his country more than the rest of us, and is thus more disturbed than the rest of us when he sees it debauched. He is not a bad citizen turning to crime; he is a good citizen driven to despair."

H.L. Mencken

One of the topics on the table for Obama supporters this Holiday weekend was the claim that Obama is planning on rolling our 401K into the Social Security system. Some progressive democrat relatives don't see a problem with this...

Any credibility to that claim? Is that in the cards?

I don't know, but it seems a pretty terrifying prospect to me...

Misunderstanding goes both ways kiddo....

1. People can believe in the Right to life and it may have nothing to do with religion.

2. I would suspect that Conservatives love all people (gay or not) as much as you do.

3. I know conservatives hate war as much as you do.

4. Left wing talk radio/blogging is no more or less hate filled than right wing talk radio/blogging

5. I love mother earth and I live as green as any liberal in town. That does not mean that I buy into the "Global Warming shake-down" that will likely divert billions of dollars from vital services.

6. Being educated does not make you an elitist. Some conservatives happily voted for Obama because he was the best choice this time around. Liberals who believe this was in some way an endorsement for every liberal viewpoint are....well...elitists.

Roy:

I would agree that misunderstandings like these cut both ways. I'm not qualified to speak on how a conservative might straighten it out, however.

I think conversations like these matter because these misunderstandings (and the stoking of them thereof) are part of the wedge which which continues to divide us.

Roy,

I believe in the right to life, but I also believe in abortion rights. The term "right to life" is often a misnomer for those opposed to abortion, as many of those folks support capital punishment, and oppose many policies that actually save lives, like work-place safety laws, consumer safety laws, pollution laws, and so on.

Many on the right have also been avid supporters of U.S. military adventurism in places like Nicaragua, Panama, Grenada, and Iraq.

Name three prominent conservatives who have been at the forefront of pushing for equal rights and protection under the law for gay people. Or even one.

Conservatives may say they hate war, but they seem to support it in an awful number of cases, including covert war, waged mostly against poor civilians, in Nicaragua.

Randi Rhodes and Mike Malloy pretty much follow the same model of talk radio as those on the right, but Thom Hartmann, Ed Schultz, and Rachel Maddow, to name three, are all much different, actually engage with people with a different outlook, and for the most part eschew the shouting that is the staple of right-wing talk.

I thought being "conservative" means acting cautiously, among other things. Since the overwhelming number of scientists believe that the earth's atmosphere is warming and it's caused by human activity and likely will have dire consequences, isn't it the conservative thing to act to reverse the process as much as we can?

We understand that conservatives who voted for Obama didn't endorse every viewpoint, but did the Bush administration act as though not everyone who voted for them endorsed all of their viewpoints?

I think a good topic of discussion for your family is the new opinion piece in the LA Times by Neal Gabler that postulates that Senator Joe McCarthy is the actual "Father of Conservatism" and not Barry Goldwater. It's an interesting read and is one of those articles that makes sense out of a picture that was unclear to me before.

It would be interesting to see if they agree that it's all about the paranoia and desire to 'blame someone else' for our problems that's at the root of their political beliefs.

Ditto-head culture makes any kind of reason based discourse impossible. It's about demonizing anyone who views things differently, or holds a different value has being morally degraded, unpatriotic, or otherwise deficient in character. True dialogue requires intellectual honesty and a willingness that the other point of view might have value and correctness. While there are "true believers" on the left who are unwilling to practice intellectual honesty, I often find, especially among the fundamentalist Christian crowd on the right that those who hold opposing points of view are simply in league with satan, and not only wrong but an active agent of evil.

Roy,

It's true that there's bad behavior on both sides, but in looking at blogs on both sides, I see a preponderance of civility from the left and a preponderance of rudeness and name-calling on the right. It happens on both sides, it's just that it's the main tool in the tool box for all too many on the right.

@fbear:I see a preponderance of civility from the left

That may be just due to the sites you choose to visit. If you wish to see just how "uncivil" the left is, try discussing the sham that global warming is or that illegal aliens are criminals.

I thought being "conservative" means...

"Conservative" is like "liberal." Both words have come to mean so many things they are almost meaningless. "Conservative" in its dictionary-defined meanings of tradition and preservative is at considerable variance from "conservative" when applied to politicians and pundits on the right of the political spectrum. Some policies (anti-war, education, regulation) espoused by some people in the extreme center are conservative in the sense of being preservative and cautionary but are regarded as liberal, even far-left, by others. It was mostly so-called conservatives who threw caution to the wind and pushed for deregulation that brought the markets down.

I thought being "conservative" means...

If we look at so-called conservatives such as William Kristol, George Will, Bill O'Reilly and their ilk we could say conservatives are people who have contempt for others they deem below their social, economic or power class.

Well, liberals are also contempuous souls. It's an individual thing. A vegetarian has recently told us that if we eat meat we are not good people. And, conversely, I was recently at a house blessing where two perfectly-coiffed grandmothers who are ex-nuns talked about working the Obama campaign every chance they got - as PRO-LIFE women who believe outlawing abortions has so far not gotten the results needed, and social justice is an important balancing. They were soft-spoken conservative women who at no time evinced the harshness one typically will find ... perhaps some of the harshness of those labeled as conservative comes from the defensiveness of their stance? I suspect that since the mid-fifties, when the Structural Functionalist frame of reference still reigned unquestioned, they have foudn themselves feeling embattled and on the edge. Even when the religious extremists held our White House for nearly a decade, the haunting sense of power soon to be lost again, this surely drives the power of their diatribe?

Carla, Take heart. Here's an excerpt from a column by a pretty successful writer in a similar family position:

"I've been surprised, out on the road, how often I get asked about my family. They're beyond red - more like crimson. My sister flew to West Virginia in October to work a phone bank for W. People often wonder what our Thanksgiving is like. It's lovely - if you enjoy hearing about how brilliant Ann Coulter is, how misguided The New York Times's editorial page is, and how valiant the president is as he tries to stop America's slide into paganism. This year, my brothers were on the warpath about news reports that Maryland public schools did not teach about Thanksgiving from a religious perspective. "Who do they think the Pilgrims thanked?" demanded Martin. "God." There are moments - when my brothers are sharing some snarky thing Rush Limbaugh said about me, or the latest bon mot from Pat Buchanan, with whom they grew up - that I'm tempted to stuff my ears with my mom's potato stuffing, or go off and read a book by David Sedaris about normal family life."

The writer? Maureen Dowd.

"Taxes are the dues we pay for living in this free society."

Yes. But liberals believe in more government intervention, more programs, more universal help than conservatives. This issue comes to down to how much government should be involved. The more it is, the more taxes you pay. It's that simple. (I believe one of the reasons Bush's popularity is so low is because of his massive spending over the years, and moving away from the core conservative value of less government.)

"In fact, I submit that those more educated among us are the most qualified to often lead the discourse."

I have family members who are only high school educated and college educated. Those with only a high school level education don't lack the ability to read, educate themselves, learn, or eloquently debate issues. Just because someone spends four years at a university doesn't put them on a pedestal of superiority.

Question: If you're a political science major, you have just as much credence to talk about agricultural issues as the farmer who never went to college? Or if you're an English major you know more about timber and manufacturing issues than the guy who worked in the mills for 30-years after graduating high school?

Higher education doesn't always trump real-life experience - or vise versa. We all have knowledge and life experiences to share. Rather than argue about who's right and who's wrong, maybe we should share our differences and our knowledge to bind us, not divide us.

My wife has four siblings. Two are republicans, one is a democrat, the other an independent. We have amazing debates at times, and although we may disagree, we never allow our political aspirations to overshadow what's really important: our relationships. Carla, I'm sorry if your family doesn't respect you, or degrades you for your opinions. I'm thankful I'm part of a family where politics doesn't define you.

"Do I love and nurture my family less because I don't seek the guidance of God in my daily life? I choose to live a moral life because for me its the right thing to do--not because a higher authority tells me to do it."

How do you know what the "right thing" to do is, without some level of moral absolutes? Who gets to choose what those absolutes are? If only humans are responsible for creating absolutes, where did they come from? Again, who gets to define them?

It helps that I am a combat veteran who attends church regularly.

It's an interesting, although hardly new, social commentary that being a combat veteran and a church attendee "helps" around right-wing circles.

During the general-election campaign, I sometimes had across-the-fence conversations with my long-time neighbor, an ex-Democrat whom I've see drift progressively rightward over the years. On several occasions he remarked on how he viewed John McCain's actions as a POW as "honorable". I finally remarked that I didn't a clue what he even meant by this, but on further reflection, I think I understood what was going on (and this goes back to the idea that being a vet and a churchgoer boosts one's credibility): When my neighbor hears someone like George Bush or John McCain talking about duty, honor and country, he stands up straighter, hangs out his US flag, and tells his kids to pay attention. But when I hear the duty-honor-country litany, I check whether my wallet is missing.

How do you know what the "right thing" to do is, without some level of moral absolutes? Who gets to choose what those absolutes are? If only humans are responsible for creating absolutes, where did they come from? Again, who gets to define them?

I reject the entire premise behind this string of rhetorical questions. The premise here is pretty transparently that an ethical code is impossible unless it is rooted in some sort of religious framework, and more particularly, a monotheistic one. As for myself, I have no truck with gods, but this does not handicap me when it comes to treating my family, my neighbors, my co-workers etc. decently.

"Moral absolutes": I don't need them because I have one of those big human brains and thus the ability for reflection, for introspection, for compassion.

Nicely done, Carla! I'm sure that all over America, families gathered for Thanksgiving and solitary conservatives or solitary liberals got an earful.

I don't completely agree with you on everything, but that's mostly on the margins. I do agree very strongly that Americans of all political persuasions can still love their country, and almost all do. I also agree that one doesn't have to be religious to be moral. To the contrary, some of the most religious people I've known are also intolerant and hypocritical.

There are always going to be partisan differences among us, of course. Anyone who dreams of some "post-partisan" utopia is naive at best. How would that happen? It would mean that people on one side of each issue (think abortion, gun control, the death penalty, etc) would have to abandon their beliefs in order to join with the other side. Not going to happen. What we can and should do, though, is live together and learn to compromise a little. Most of all, the hatred has to go.

I'm in exactly the same boat, but am also pleased that two of my siblings (and their spouses) voted for Obama this year.

On abortion, I have found that a direct attack on abortion is the most effective, because it accepts their premise and shows an empty logic. Fundamentalists look to the Bible. Of course, the Bible doesn't talk about abortion AT ALL. And while the Old Testament says a lot about life, God also regularly commands "his" people to do what we now call genocide, including passages about killing pregnant women. Quickly, then, the discussion turns to "but if it might be life, shouldn't you be trying to protect it," and becomes not about absolute good and bad, but viability, and policy; in the end, I then steer it toward reaching agreement on trying to find ways to get people to not be in a position of choosing whether or not to have an abortion.

God bless 'em, but my family is holiday hell. Nothing teaches my kids love and tolerance like sitting around for a couple of hours listening to their great uncle L describe his glorious WWII days in the South Pacific, complete with lengthly descriptions of how he shot, stabbed, exploded, burned and otherwise killed all those _ (derrogatory reference to citizens of Japan). Combine that with the anti-commie pro-Bush comments and the favorable detailed analysis of the Pope's latest teachings on birth control or abortion or whatever, and you have an idea of what my holidays are like. I was tempted to try and eat myself to death at the Thanksiving dinner table just to escape the pain, but that would have been a mortal sin.

But liberals believe in more government intervention, more programs, more universal help than conservatives. This issue comes to down to how much government should be involved. The more it is, the more taxes you pay. It's that simple.

The trouble is, conservatives tend to believe that government intervention should be avoided in far too many cases when it's warranted.

Conservatives tend to oppose stronger workplace safety regulations.

Conservatives tend to oppose clean air and clean water legislation.

Conservatives tend to oppose product safety laws and regulations.

The thing is, conservatives enjoy the benefits of these regulations as much as liberals--dirty air and water is as unhealthy for those on the right as for those on the left. A car with bad brakes could injure or kill Lars Larson or Bill O'Reilly as much as it could do the same to Thom Hartmann or Rachel Maddow.

And it's not like they really have a rational argument against health and safety regulations--we're expected to agree "just because".

10 reasons (I think) Democrats and Republicans are two wings on the same turkey:

1. You love your "country" when you should respect others'.

2. You want security at the price of your liberty and your ideals.

3. You believe in the reality of the "free" market.

4. You worship anything military. (Why don't carpenters deserve education and health care as much as or more than soldiers?)

5. You believe in the legitimacy of illegitimate notions based on the book(s) you read. (It takes a really great education to be so thoroughly indoctrinated.)

6. You think that "love of family" trumps morality or ethics.

7. You believe that over a $trillion a year in taxes spent on "national security" is sacrosanct.

8. You believe in the "golden rule" except when it pertains to the people under your boot.

9. You believe in personal responsibility except when it means taking responsibility for the crimes of your own political hacks.

10. You believe that the stick and/or the carrot have value only if it's your stick/carrot.

O dear. Poor old Harry going on about jackboots again. He wishes it were 1930-something or other.

Thanks to all of you for your respectful and thoughtful responses to what I had to say. Obviously, there's a lot of philosophical and religious differences we have here. We could argue day and night on these points, but in the end, it would just be arguments that wouldn't lead anywhere. I do, however, respect your positions.

Joel,

You're free to reject my premise. Personally, I believe a moral or ethical code has to stand on something solid, and foundational.

doretta,

Maybe not. I've lived a life of both secular and biblical thinking. I don't attest to understand it all, but I believe that without a higher power instituting some sense of moral/ethical obligations, I have a difficult time understanding how the human race came to figure out on its own what's right/wrong. You don't have to agree with me, nor do expect anyone else to think the way I do.

"Simply because Foxes know all sorts of things about Henhouses does not mean they're the best ones to put in charge of guarding them. The fact that Republicans don't understand that basic principal, is explanation for much of what ails this nation."

Steven, this is highly conjectural. I don't think it's fair to blame all of our country's problems on one party or to refer to Republicans as foxes. Both parties have their good qualities and bad qualities. The ails of this nation don't rest on one party alone, but on the frailty and flaws that often define the human condition. If one party had all the latest and greatest ideas, one would assume they would enjoy unlimited power. History proves the opposite. That's like saying that when a couple divorces, only one is at fault.

"The trouble is, conservatives tend to believe that government intervention should be avoided in far too many cases when it's warranted.

fbear,

The difference, again, is that Liberals usually support regulations that can be arduous or taxing to people and businesses at the outset. Republicans believe that approach ends up costing businesses money - and jobs - in the long run; not because the regulations were necessarily bad, but because they were implemented too early, or were too onerous. Conservatives want to look at ways to either phase in such regulations over a longer period of time, or find ways to avoid more regulations, union involvement, or government intervention. I think the problem is twofold: liberals often want too much regulation, and republicans not enough.

This, to me, serves as a perfect example that both sides have something to offer. Instead of hammering each other for how "stupid" one party's ideas are, or how they have created all the "ails" of this country, don't you think there are ways to find compromises? Or am I being to hopeful? Too naive?

This is why I remain independent. I'm tired of R's and D's thinking their way is the "right" and "only" way. I believe both parties have aspects that are decent and intelligent, and I'm convinced the intentions of both parties are inherently good, although flawed. I'm utterly amazed at the vitriol that is spewed by both sides, in an attempt squash the ideas of the other, without considering their merits. The problem is we all would rather prove our points and degrade each other, rather than carefully listen and consider another viewpoint. Hence the difference between arguing and debating.

I think these two quotes say it all:

“When I don't like a piece of music, I make a point of listening to it more closely” Florent Schmitt (French Composer. 1870-1958)

“Years ago, I tried to top everybody, but I don't anymore, I realized it was killing conversation. When you're always trying for a topper you aren't really listening. It ruins communication.” Groucho Marx

Jason,

You're making a fundamental mistake. Corporations' very existence is a form of regulation. No matter how much they screw up, the owners of the corporation are only liable for the amount of money they invested in the corporation

We can discuss which regulations are wise and which ones aren't, but the regulation of everyone else with regard to corporations (we're regulated from collecting an unlimited amount from a corporation) means it's fair game to regulate the corporations.

And corporations themselves often make the strongest case for regulation when they're caught doing something that has harmed someone else, they often say "well, we were following the law."

If corporations really want to eliminate regulations, they should behave in ways that don't require them.

<h2>As for unions, in dealing with organized capital (corporations), it makes sense that the employees also organize.</h2>